Façades
by NoTimeTeen
Summary: Jade finds herself in a position where she has to learn how to trust to be able to love. Because how can she love Tori if she doesn't think she can trust her? This is a story of subjective thoughts and personal points of view. Jori.


_**Enjoy!**_

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Around her they spoke.

"So you took her home?"

"I did, indeed… Though, not to mine." Tori smirked.

"Then you didn't even…?"

"Never said I did." André's chin rose ever so slightly. He seemed proud, probably not aware that most of the guys at the table stared at him with something short of pity in their eyes. Not Jade, though.

"How come she didn't…" Beck hesitated. "I mean, when I saw you two she was rather drunk and…" — his eyes took a quick trip around the table, eyeing carefully the two absorbed girls next to him and the indifferent other one in front of him — "…and that's often enough with her."

An indignant "Oh, my god!" escaped Cat, covering Tori's own loud huff. Beck and André both feigned embarrassment.

Jade was listening to none of this. Her eyes were trained absently on the brunette figure across from her. Tori became aware of this fact. An eyebrow quirked at her forehead. Another quirked at Jade's.

Tori went back to the conversation.

Social life was not what the movies taught them. Nor what the books attempted to describe. Social life was the complex interaction of the individual and their world. Jade reflected upon it as Tori's smile was contrasted by a frown; the brunette answered unintelligibly to something Jade couldn't care about. Girls weren't just waiting to be asked out and boys weren't just partying every other day to get laid. Personality wasn't something that occurred naturally — it was a tool that was used at all times by most people.

Sitting there, Jade thought about the four or so guys that were still waiting to receive responses from her to their inquisitive messages sent days before, of the other several girls that, like herself, were also keeping them waiting; she thought of the last time Beck had come to her place with a smile on his face and a condom in his pocket, of how his expression barely suggested what he had been looking for before Jade pulled him in and up into her room.

Sitting there, Jade thought of the time Tori moaned her name as her body squirmed; thought of the strangely pleasurable and sexually devoid aftermath, of Tori's fingertip running up and down the surface of her torso.

"You ever wonder," she had whispered in her ear, "what it would be like to date a girl?"

A girl didn't need to be an actress to use that sort of phrases to her advantage, and though Tori was a terrible stage actress, she was, like most other girls, a terrific social actress. She could've made a comment about the weather sound sexy — she was that good. All that while Jade wasn't even capable of pretending she hadn't liked feeling Tori's warm body naked next to her own.

Indifference was Jade's personal forte.

"How 'bout you, Jade?" Those brown, chocolate eyes locked on Jade's, a playful glint mocking her from inside. "Would you have taken that skank to your place?"

"Lest I missed such a good chance?" André completed solemnly. Jade ignored him. The subtlety of her scorn was overlooked by all but Tori.

…

The torture continued as the day advanced. At classrooms their eyes locked together, one set furious, the other amused to a great extent. At lunch Tori's voice was as playful as ever, her contributions to the conversation as subtly poisonous as only Jade knew the girl could muster them.

"Join me today at my place, okay?" Tori directed confidently at Jade at some point. "I kinda need to ask you a thing or two about scriptwriting."

…

Later Jade called her on the phone.

"I'm not coming over." She scolded her phone before a reply was even heard. It took her minutes. "Had I known," she added as her temper lost its heat, "I would've just come home."

"You mean you wouldn't have helped poor drunk Tori?"

They went over the couple of questions Tori had about their homework. Jade knew it wasn't due for over two weeks yet, but it surprised her to learn Tori's motive had been real. It terrified her to notice she couldn't distinguish between what was true and what wasn't with Tori.

"Wanna know what I'm wearing right now?" Tori's sultriness was the most toxic Jade had yet known.

"Wipe that smirk off your face, Vega," Jade answered annoyed.

"Helpless case," Tori whispered amusedly. "Sort of like your currently-hard nipples." Her soft teasing laugh filtered into Jade's head as a thousand needles prickling her all the way to her crotch.

"Fuck you."

Not twenty minutes later, however, Tori was motioning for her to be silent as they made their way up the stairs; at the living room Trina bizarrely worked out along with some other fatties that were on the flat screen.

"What do you earn?" Jade inquired amid kisses up in the room. "Gotta tell you, I won't do this in public."

"Nor will I," was all Tori had to say.

Her regret drowned in waves of pleasure. Tori licked and kissed her way into Jade's pants; with her bare hands she ripped through the black tank top. The girl was delighted to find the braless breasts. "All the preparation I dared concede," Jade explained.

"I think I like these more than I like you." Tori played with her bosom. Jade was happy to see the façade fell over. This was intimate. Jade didn't need to ask to know intimacy was not something Tori provided simply by taking part in the act of sex.

When Jade started to feel like moaning she decided it was as good a time as any to start undressing Tori Vega. She suggested it.

"You ought to know better by now, West." Her blue eyes travelled from the quirked eyebrow to the large stretch of bare skin that peeked through the flaps of Tori's robe. One pull and the fabric was gone.

Their thighs intertwined and their centers moistened the other's skin. "My god, Jade!"

Tori was careful not to be too loud at first. Jade had the impulse to inquire who else was home, wondered what would happen if anyone heard them, and ultimately decided she wanted to play randomly with matches to see if any fell on gasoline. Her hands moved deftly on and in Tori. With her lips she kept both nipples stimulated.

Her face pressed hotly into the tan neck as it stretched and vibrated with an escaping whimper. Jade kissed open-mouthed up Tori's chin, over her defined jaw and to her ear. "I want you to say my name," she whispered. "I beg of you," she kept it on. "Say my name. I want you to say it."

Jade got what she wanted. That and more. Tori begged as Jade begged her, and she threatened to give her even more pleasure.

Obscene noises echoed all around. In and out Jade's fingers went; right and left went another set of them. Jade's body was pressed flush against Tori's, the moans now escaping both their mouths.

When Jade's turn came, it came without an interval. Tori had barely finished producing the sound of the name by the time Jade had been thrown sideways. Her head and upper body hung from the edge of the bed, and she couldn't believe how strong the illusion of freefalling was.

In front of her she saw upside-down the closed door and as Tori's lips sloppily made their way down her body Jade imagined what Holly Vega would look like if she opened the door before her beloved daughter had the chance to conclude her present activities. She pictured the frozen figure — poise paralyzed in fright, face momentarily stunned into confusion as the head tried to unravel what the image the eyes showed meant, arms and legs outstretched and expecting orders.

She moaned Tori's name as loud as she could, partly because it was exciting to think someone could come up and partly because the pleasure she was feeling made her not care whether she lost her voice from screaming.

The first time she'd been with Tori she'd been surprised by how good she was. No one knew how to make hands and mouth work in tandem as well as Tori did, Jade was sure. A wet tongue entered her wetly as fingers tended nipples and clit with almost the same amount of attention. The magic of the Vega technique was in the overwhelming sensation that drowned all rational thoughts until they could be considered dead.

Jade felt her chest contract and expand uncontrollably, her stomach spasm intensely and her back arching upwards. Finally, Jade's voice broke at the middle of uttering the first syllable of Tori's name, turning into a senseless scream. Jade was barely even conscious of the ache left in her throat after that.

When her eyes opened the room was still upside down, Tori's naked ankle disappeared past the doorframe as the girl went out into the hallway.

"God," she whispered when she returned, her body as naked as her ankle. "I think she didn't hear a thing. Guess she thinks if the video's loud enough it'll help her lose weight." Jade couldn't bring herself to respond in any way.

…

Tori's phone claimed it was 10:32 when Jade took it to check… she didn't really know what she had wanted to check. Instinctively, Jade tapped the message icon, which was adorned with a small "22". Twenty-two unread messages from six different people. Three of those messages were her own, Jade realized.

That was what her own phone would inform to anyone who checked, as well. Several unanswered messages from several unimportant persons. Jade had come to understand those signs as the symbol of the modern teenager.

"That shirt is mine, you," Tori stopped her halfway out the door later. An eyebrow rose. Tori then threw a bright-colored hoodie at Jade. "So that my mother doesn't question it."

Jade didn't know when or if Mother Vega had arrived, nor did she care. She ignored whatever questioning voice was directed at her as she left the household. It was dark outside.

"Can't understand why you left," Tori said. Jade was not yet at her place when she answered the phone.

She did not respond.

"What do you want, West?" What Jade liked of listening to Tori after they'd had sex was how honest she seemed to become. There was no act when Tori and her were naked and alone. "What is it you want from me?"

Jade sighed tiredly. "You tell me."

For Tori could claim she wanted Jade, could even ask her out, but both knew the truth, and the truth was Tori was not a person who liked people. "Is that a problem?" Tori had asked that first night, weeks before. "You don't like people either."

"I want you to _be_ for me." Tori sounded sad. Jade realized the façade was back up.

"Mother, O Mother, why have you forsaken me?" Jade mocked her, her voice impassible.

"Gotta give it to me, Jade," Tori smirked soundly, façade down again for a moment. "I don't stop trying."

 _But trying what?_ Jade thought to herself.

…

The next few days were as calm as ever for Jade. Only the occasional heated stare and hurried kiss made her think of Tori Vega at all. Or so she told herself. The brunette loomed over her constantly as a ghost would over his murderer. With Tori's voice it whispered potential truths and teased with glimpses of what a prosperous summer would be like in the company of the youngest Vega.

The climate went hotter and the sky ever clearer. Classes were coming to an end. Jade felt more and more anxious the less Tori looked at her, the less they dragged each other to make out. Every day Jade tried to convince herself that talking would be the best thing, only to later convince herself it actually wasn't.

Finally, it all ended. The classes, the kisses. Tori visited her home a week before the schoolyear was over and, as they lay naked and together on Jade's bed, expressed her wish to not do it again.

"I think a few weeks should do you good to think about what you want."

Because what Jade West wanted had become the favorite topic of discussion for Tori Vega — something that had not gone unnoticed by their group of friends, for that matter.

"You keep hiding yourself behind that," Jade whispered angrily, "but all you're trying to do is convince me I'm the one who's doing this."

Tori looked away.

"Who started this, huh?" Jade kissed her hard on the lips, made them roll over until they fell off the bed, and then continued kissing her.

Jade had come to know by heart Tori's body. The mole on her left shoulder, the ancient scar just below her navel, the suspicious dot beneath her lower lip where a piercing had been for no longer than a week. Jade went over it all in her head as if it was going to be in a test. She had come to love it all.

"Who started this?" she kept asking.

Tori didn't answer, and Jade had to guess she didn't really know what was the answer. Jade herself didn't know, either.

They had been drunk when it happened. Somehow they had ended up dancing next to each other amid the chaos, and when Tori had seen Jade was the one dancing with her a wide smile had spread on her face. Once she noticed how drunk the girl was, Jade had stopped drinking. Tori kept at it.

Finally, they had come to Jade's place. Jade couldn't remember what had happened, she only remembered falling on her soft bed with her lips already attached to Tori's.

The next day they didn't talk about it. They made out, instead. Had sex once more.

"I don't actually care who did." Tori pushed her away. "I'm not going to be the one who ends it." Her voice was firm, her hands steady holding Jade away from her. Later, as Jade closed her front door, Tori stopped her. She spoke through the thin opening between the door and its frame. "Gimmie a call."

…

And for the next weeks Jade thought. Every weekend she went out with Cat and ended up making out with random girls and boys, desperate to know if there was some particular detail that put Tori apart from all the others. And she discovered there was something that made her different, she just couldn't figure what it was.

Often at night Jade tortured herself wondering if Tori was out on a date with one of those mysterious boys she so diligently ignored whenever they were together; wondered if now that they weren't spending time with the other Tori had allowed herself to date any of them.

Once she wondered if maybe Tori had fallen in love during what had passed of the summer, then laughed silently at herself for her own naivety. Of course Tori wouldn't fall in love. Jade even went as far as to assume Tori wasn't capable of such thing.

She learned to like going to parties with Cat. The girl only paid attention to her until they crossed the front doors of the houses to which they went. Jade made a point of trying to understand people. She talked to boys and girls to see what they hid under their respective façades. Unconfident boys who got drunk to look more mature; daughters of broken homes seeking boyfriends to escape; afraid homosexuals trying to reaffirm the fact they weren't what they were. Alcohol and conversation was all Jade needed to know them all.

Not at the darkness, though. If she leaped into the darkness where many danced and bumped into each other, where pounding music covered all other sound and anonymity shrouded even the most unconfident of persons, Jade could forget who they all were, that they were all pretending to be someone else; there Jade could forget what she was running from.

One night she felt a lithe body grind into her own to the electronic beat of the music. Thin lips caressed her naked shoulder when she didn't push away. In the darkness they kissed. Jade felt a familiar sensation in her gut. Heat climbed up her neck and descended into the pit of her stomach, into the space between her legs. Soon, Jade was pressing the faceless body into hers and breathing raggedly. Small breasts pushed into her own full ones and Jade let herself go. She dragged the other body by the hand blindly until she somehow found an empty room.

Still under the cover of darkness they robed each other of their clothes. Hot whimpers and senseless noises escaping them at short intervals. Later Jade would wonder how she hadn't been able to pay more attention. She would suppose she'd been drunker than she thought. Though, it was most likely she had just decided to ignore the truth.

It was when a car moved outside that she saw. Headlights illuminated as much ceiling as they could and the light reflected on the white surface. The particles of light travelled from one side of the bed to the other, slowly, almost teasingly, until they fell on the patch of skin that was a lighter tone under the navel, until they ran over the bunch of familiar underclothes on which by sheer luck Jade's eyes were trained.

She knew this person, she realized now terrified.

 _Vega._

She didn't wait for the other person to question anything. She jumped away from the bed and grabbed what clothes she could. Then she ran.

It wasn't until she was halfway home that she noticed the shirt she had on didn't quite cover her navel. She knew Tori would know it had been her.

It was Tori. The whole time it had been Tori.

…

When her body tiredly slumped on her bed Jade considered sleeping. The clock on her bedside table signaled it was a little past midnight. She considered feigning innocence, considered claiming she'd been there watching scary movies all night.

But when her phone started vibrating she knew it would be of no use.

In her head it echoed as if Tori was whispering it next to her: _what do you want?_

"Never took you for a _user_ , Jade," Tori's voice drawled. Jade refused to respond. It was already too much for her to be listening to Tori. "No, really," she continued. "I never thought you were the kind to go to parties and make out with the random dancer."

Jade snorted. "Not quite random."

"You knew it was me?"

Jade suffered a short episode of self-awareness. She realized she felt disappointed of the fact Tori had actually kissed her thinking she was a stranger, disappointed of the fact she herself had kissed a stranger.

"I'm coming over."

Jade frowned angrily. How dare she. "To your place, I expect." Tori didn't answer. Her quick steps and slightly agitated breath was all that could be heard. "I'm not letting you in."

Tori was silent.

The phone was still pressed against Jade's ear when Tori walked into her room. She hung up before speaking.

She smiled sweetly, façade fully on. "You should've locked—"

"Stop it. Get out."

Jade was having none of it. She didn't want to. Tori was wearing the borrowed black shirt with flawless nonchalance, as if Jade had chosen it specifically for Tori to wear. For some reason that only made Jade angrier.

 _What do you want, Jade?_ Tori said inside her head.

Jade wanted to slap her hard across the face. She wanted to make her cry. Jade wanted Tori to apologize for ignoring her for the past several weeks, wanted her to make up for the lost time.

Jade wanted to kiss Tori hard on the lips.

"What do you want, Jade?"

"I want to know who started it." Jade just said it to gain time and arrange her thoughts, but as the words escaped her she realized it was one of the things she wanted to know.

"Does it matter?"

Jade stepped forward. Kissed Tori hard on the lips.

She felt as if she'd travelled through time. She was back at this very place, drunk to the point that she felt her body swaying even as she stood still facing away from her. Tori was leaning her back on the wall, even drunker. The breath Tori released filled her nostrils.

"It all comes down to what you want," Tori had whispered drunkenly. She had just suggested Jade took advantage of her drunken state. "What do you want?"

Then it had begun. Jade wondered still who had closed the distance. Seconds later her eyes had been closed, their bodies pressed close together, one of her hands trailing a slow path up the hot skin under Tori's shirt. At that moment Jade could think nothing of their activities. The next day, when her eyes opened and found Tori's naked form half covered by the thin blanket Jade had been afraid for probably a second; then she'd seen Tori's nipple peeking from under the fabric and all thoughts of regret had vanished.

Maybe Tori was right and it didn't actually matter who had started it.

What did Jade want of Tori, though? She wanted kisses like the one they were exchanging. With roaming hands on their backs and tender tongues caressing teeth and lips. She wanted to arrive at Hollywood Arts to give Tori a hug and to kiss her whenever she could. Jade pictured what it would be like to be Tori's girlfriend. To spend the afternoons together and to go out on dates once a week. Go out to their table at lunch and talk to their friends as they held hands under the table. If Jade hadn't been kissing Tori when those thoughts appeared she might have blushed.

When they separated Jade spoke first. "What is it you want from me, Vega?"

"You tell me."

Jade and Tori kissed until keeping their eyes closed was easier than keeping them open. Then they fell asleep, hands intertwined between them.

Jade forced herself to stay awake. She contemplated the side of Tori's face she could see through the unveiling darkness. Saw Tori's face free of façades.

Just as Jade wanted it to always be.

…

"What is it you want of me, Jade?" Those were the first words Jade heard when she woke up. They were spoken in a whisper, as low as they could get. Jade was still too sleepy to open her eyes. And when she felt Tori sigh on her face she figured the girl thought she was still sleeping. Jade relaxed and tried to keep her breathing steady.

Warm soft skin pressed against her face, a silent, subtle kiss was laid on her cheek.

"What is it you want?" Judging by the level of her voice, Jade assumed Tori now expected she would answer.

Without opening her eyes, Jade did. "You," she whispered.

Later they ate breakfast and went back to sleep.

…

Weeks later, as Jade lay in the same position, silently staring at her now-girlfriend, she mentally tried to decide if what she felt for Tori was love. It was scary. Love went against everything Jade believed in. She didn't trust people. How could she love Tori if she didn't trust her?

So, did she _trust_ Tori?

Jade trusted no one. No one at all. And though lately that didn't seem to include Tori, Jade had still found herself frowning from time to time at the way Tori acted — particularly at the way she acted in front of their friends.

"So what has my favorite couple been doing?" André would greet them every time. Jade hated it, and often felt like punching him in the face. Tori, however, always blushed furiously and started acting as she always did around the most accessible of their friends.

"Oh, stop it, you," Tori would giggle, hand waving embarrassingly and hitting André in the shoulder. That was the Tori Jade well remembered hating, the one that was childish and dumbly coquettish. Whenever her façade turned into that, Jade felt she had made the worst mistake of her life.

But then they would be alone again, and Tori would again become the mature, teasingly sexy woman Jade had been dating, and she would be unable to stay angry at her. And changes would still occur at other places. At parties, Tori would get drunk and Jade would have to take care of her, and when they went home and Jade took out her weed to relax after the stressing night, Tori would somehow sober up and smoke a joint with her at the deck overlooking her pool. Or at her place — " _God_ , at her place!" Jade thought every time — Tori would turn as shallow as her sister; at Jade's, though, she was amazingly smart and could help Jade finish a whole play in less than an hour.

Unfortunately, Jade thought, the only thing that seemed to bother her of Tori was the very thing that annoyed her of every other person. The lack of consistence with their personality. Personality wasn't something that occurred naturally — it was a tool that was used at all times by most people. In this context, Tori was one of most people, and her use of the personality tool was voluntary and excessive.

It made Jade feel afraid, afraid that she had not yet met the real Tori, even if they had been dating for a month.

"Why are you like that, huh?" she would ask her girlfriend, only to be the recipient of one of those roguish winks and cheeky grins she so hated to see.

"Like what, babe?" Tori would drawl.

That night, as Tori slept silently, Jade stared into her face. It was soft, free of emotions. Her forehead a smooth surface of uniform brown, her cheeks gentle, unchanging plains. Not a wrinkle in sight, not an artificial element distorting her features.

Jade wondered if she could love Tori, if the real Tori, the one Jade got to see when they were alone, could outweigh the wide range of façades she got to produce when in company of others. Jade wondered if she could risk herself to trust someone she wasn't sure she knew at all times.

Everybody pretended to be something or someone else, and neither Tori nor Jade were an exception. Tori pretended to be stupid and childish either to be liked by others or to deal with her distaste for them; Jade acted as if she didn't give a damn about what happened around her so that she could avoid pretending she liked others. But neither of them was that. Tori was smart and mature, and Jade liked studying people and talking to Tori.

Could Jade trust Tori?

Jade didn't trust people because she knew that they shouldn't be trusted. People was treacherous, and only ever were friendly if they expected something of others. It was of their own free will that they acted friendly, and exclusively if by doing it they could gain some benefit for themselves.

And Tori was no better.

But then again, neither was Jade.

Tori's phone was now always silent, and apart from the occasional loser looking for attention, Tori would ignore every message that hadn't been sent by one of their friends. When they were at a party, no matter how drunk Tori got, their hands would always be joined. And there was not a day now in which Jade didn't know what Tori was doing, not because she insisted in asking, but because her girlfriend insisted in telling her.

Maybe the question Jade should be asking herself was not if she _could_ trust Tori. Maybe that just wasn't the right question. Maybe the right question was other: _did_ she trust Tori?

Did she love her?

Because love was not something that could be controlled, as personality was. Love was a natural phenomenon that occurred when it was least expected. Being able to trust someone is not what love is; love is trusting someone you know you probably shouldn't trust. Love is trusting someone you know can betray you, because though you know it could happen you know it won't, because the one you love loves you just as much — that is, when love is true.

Such as Jade's and Tori's was.

And Jade realized she was willing to accept it. She was willing to fall in love with Tori, no matter what façade she was wearing. She was willing to go against everything she believed in because she knew Tori was true only to her.

And when later Tori awoke Jade stared into her eyes.

Kissed her hard.

Whispered into her ear the words she dreaded to whisper.

"I love you."

And Tori's answer came with no hesitation.

Fin.

* * *

 _ **Review!**_


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